Posts Tagged: pressure
Zaccaria's International Team Showcase Irrigation Whiz During Foothill Field Day
With mounting pressure on growers to account for their precious water use, irrigation tools are...
A sale, a Sale! I took advantage of that sale. . .
Home-canned chicken is wonderful. And the broth/stock that forms in home-canned chicken is worth every penny you spent on the chicken, jars, pressure canner. . .
Oh, man-oh-man, do I love a sale BIG TIME! Caught a local market with fresh, name-brand chicken thighs, drums and split chicken breasts on sale for 67 cents a pound!. I had not seen any fresh chicken at that price for a very, very long time--so of course I bought my limit of thighs--they have so much more flavor than breasts. I rushed them home and they sat in the coldest part of my fridge for a day, waiting for me to pressure can them.
These thighs were fresh--Great! Wide mouth pint jars were dug out of storage, washed and made ready. Lids were rounded up and cleaned for sealing. National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP)/USDA canning instructions checked for time and weight at my altitude. The chicken was rinsed, cleaned, skinned and de-fatted in preparation for loading into jars. However, I found that I had not considered the size of the thighs when I purchased them. I mean, how big could they be, right? After all they are chicken thighs, no?
. . .At the last minute I dug out wide mouth rings. . . I don't have too many of those, and some were of questionable roundness. . .
Surprise! These were monster chicken thighs. This is good, because big chickens equal larger thighs, and larger thighs have more connective tissue and more meat. The chicken juices would have plenty of gelatin, making for great flavor and smooth, rich feel in the mouth.
BUT -- the thighs were so large that I could only fit 1 full thigh and maybe a little more. So as I packed the thighs I cut chunks off of other thighs to fill each jar. Some jars had one thigh bone, some had two. It worked. The good stuff I wanted, all that good gelatin at either end of the thigh bones, was preserved.
Lids and rings were applied, the canner was loaded. I checked the canning directions again. The canner was sealed and vented appropriately, loaded, and brought up to weight-jiggle. The processing went great, the weight jiggled just right, all was well in my little kitchen. After cooling, jars were unloaded, merrily boiling.
But wait! THREE of those jars were not boiling. Remember those rings I mentioned? Alas, three no-seals and I think it was because of the "funky" rings--or maybe it was the old lids? Into the fridge they went--what a pain! Note to self: Buy a whole bunch of boath regular and wide-mouth lids WITH rings, regularly, like every year. The unsealed jars went into the fridge and my husband was very happy with his chicken stew with dumplings the following night.
(BONUS--My tip for today: When you find a deal on lids, DATE each box! AND inspect all of your rings regularly for rust and roundness.)
Any way, the thighs jellied up very nicely, so I am thinkin' about canning up a bunch of chicken foot broth. Chicken feet can be purchased at the local 99 Ranch store (chicken feet are called chicken "paws" there). They would look pretty funky up on a shelf--but they'd make GREAT stock to go with some great home-canned chicken!
Now hie thee to thy kitchen and give the following a try. It's easy-peasy, really!:
Hector Facundo, COS SURGE Intern begins summer project at LREC
Hector Facundo, a recent graduate of UC Davis with a major in Statistics, has commenced an...
College of the Sequoias SURGE intern Hector Facundo begins project at LREC.
Hector Facundo uses a pressure chamber to collect readings of midday stem water potential in young walnut trees.
Testing of Low-Pressure MIcroirrigation Emitters - Horrors
The Irrigation Training & Research Center (ITRC) of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo tested 28 different pressure-compensating models of microirrigation emitting devices from a total of nine manufacturers in order to compare independent laboratory testing with manufacturer specifications.
The test results indicate that:
The majority of ~0.5 gallon-per-hour emitters (drippers), regardless of manufacturer exhibited:
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Good uniformity of manufacturer
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Had excellent response to pressure variation
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Had consistent flow rates within the nominal operating pressure range
But that the percentage of well-performing products decreased as the designed flow rate increased. Many of the emitters designated as microsprinklers or sprayers, although pressure compensating did not compensate at the normal operating pressures. Often the pressure compensating feature did not start performing until much higher pressures were achieved. Often this occurred when clogging occurred and this clogging often occurred where the pressure diaphragm was located and was not performing. Sediment would get in back of the diaphragm. Effectively the emitters were not pressure compensating. The testing procedure of numerous medium and high flow models also found individual pieces were found to be defective. These faulty emitters had a measurable effect on the evaluation for those models.
Read more at: http://www.itrc.org/reports/pdf/emitters.pdf
irrigATING CITRUS
Pressure, Energy and Sand Media Filters
Sand media filters are commonly used in agricultural microirrigation systems. They have the advantages of simplicity and large capacities and are favored by many farmers and designers over other filtration hardware when there is a lot of organic matter in the water. The Irrigation Training and Research Center (ITRC) at Cal Poly San Luis looked at sand filters to see if it were possible to use lower-than-accepted backflush pressure and thereby reduce the total pressure required for irrigation systems. By lowering backflush pressure it would be possible to design a system that could run at an overall lower pressure and hence cost. The various components of microirrigation systems run at lower pressures than the backflush pressures recommended for most sand media filters.
The conclusions are:
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There are substantial pressure differences amongst different models and designs during backflush and filtration
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The main pressure loss is at the backflush valves
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If designed right large backflush flow rates can be accomplished at low backflush pressures (this is critical for proper detritus removal).
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There are substantial differences among underdrains of various models which affects pressure requirements
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No large intimal high pressure was necessary to break up the media bed, a common practice.
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Different underdrain designs create different patterns of cleaning the media.
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There were substantial differences among models in the amount of sand discharged from the system at backflow rate of 190 GPM. Sand discharge should actually be avoided since it's an indication of preferential flow and poor cleaning.
These are some new ideas, and even though they are meant to reduce pressure and energy use, they are also good management suggestions.
If this strikes your fancy, read more at http://www.itrc.org/reports/mediafilters.htm
sand filter